A full Red Wings prospect camp roster, and holy guacamole

Here's the full list of the Red Wings' summer "strength and conditioning" prospect camp participants. The Red Wings have invited twice as many players and split the prospects into two "teams," with one working out under Piet Van Zant's guidance in the morning (from about 8:30-10:30) and practicing in the early afternoon (from about 2:30-4:30), and the other team reversing roles. The asterisks beside certain players' names indicate try-outs:

I must regrettably inform you that my coverage will be modest at best today because EVERY other outlet (or nearly every other outlet) in the Metro Detroit news media showed up today, so I'll likely be following their stories more than penning my own, and as the Red Wings just informed us that the camp will be an all-day affair, that kinda cuts into the travel time. I'll do the best I can to keep you informed and hopefully fill in blanks, but I don't think many epics will be penned this time around.

Of note this morning:

Brendan Smith looks very, very poised out there and says that he's definitely taking a leadership role to help the younger players along. He was deftly asked about his off-ice incidents and he stated that he hopes that joining the Red Wings provides him with a clean slate, and that the incidents had been addressed. On the ice, he's the most talented player out there, and off the ice, he's gregarious, outgoing and well-spoken.

Draft pick Ben Marshall might very well be 5'8" and 150 lbs. without his equipment on, but his skating and puckhandling skills certainly speak to the fact that he's only going into his senior year of high school and could fill out into something very special;

Riley Sheahan comes as advertised--he's a power forward. He also got mobbed by the media for a good fifteen minutes;

Thomas McCollum looks much more solid this time around and he remains the coolest cucumber in the room (nice guy, too);

Last year, Brent Raedeke just sort of slinked around. This year, he looks like a powerful skater with slick bursts of speed, he's got a deft shot, passes smartly, sees the ice well and works his butt off;

Dean Chelios's greatest asset is the fact that he's actually faster with the puck on his stick than he is skating without it--most players lose a stride or three when puckhandling, but Chelios gains one;

Brooks Macek has great wheels but looks quite raw;

Drew Palmisano, for lack of a better term, seals the ice tremendously well but has "crazy hands" that move about on their own. Goaltenders hope to move their glove and blocker hand in unison when moving across the crease and try to limit movements, and Palmisano's hands are all over the place;

Sebastien Piche, a very slick skater with a nice outlet pass, was often used alongside Gleason Fournier and Smith and Marshall as the "core" defenders during Curt Fraser's drills;

Overall, the morning session was very much so a "getting to know you" affair, with Cranbrook-Kingswood coach Andy Weidenbach providing the players the fundamentals of power skating and Fraser, Jim Paek, Jiri Fischer and Wings video coach Keith McKittrick first assisting with Weidenbach's drills while Jim Bedard worked with McCollum and Palmisano, and then the four coaches put the players through a slate of drills which emphasized crisp puck movement, hard skating and forechecking, and the kind of Babcockian hockey style which both the Red Wings and Grand Rapids Griffins play...

Tomorrow things get even more interesting as skill development coach Thomas Storm will make an appearance and the pace will slowly but surely build as players develop a comfort level and begin to make "pushes" to stand out.

Also of note: he's not being made available to the media, but Dan Cleary is here working on rehabbing his knees and groin.